Marketing campaigns of the past haven’t exactly been lean. In fact, old strategies focused on saturation over everything else—get the word out to as many people as possible and hope that some of them have their wallets handy.
Lean thinking changes the emphasis to quality over quantity. It’s not about reducing anything except wasted effort. In this article, we take a look at a strategy that focuses on processes that holistically increase conversion rates by focusing on customer satisfaction, employee well-being, and constant improvement. Read on to learn more about the impact lean thinking can have on your marketing efforts.
First, What is “Lean” Thinking?
Lean thinking is all about creating workflows that are most naturally tuned towards healthy productivity. The goal is always to deliver value, both to the customer, and the people who are doing the work. To make this happen, lean marketing strategies focus on reducing wasted effort, constantly improving, and maximizing operational efficiency to make sure that every decision has the highest possible impact.
In the sections below, we look at how these values translate into significant results for modern lean thinking marketers.
More Efficient
Lean marketing allows marketers to create highly targeted campaigns that minimize, or even eliminate waste entirely. This can be accomplished largely through data analysis and implementation. Data-driven marketers now know:
- Who uses their product
- What features they value
- What sort of lifestyle they live
- Where they are most likely to encounter advertisements
Using this information, marketers no longer have to throw things against the wall and see what sticks. Instead, they can make thoughtful marketing campaigns that appeal directly to their customers. Consequently, they get better results with less money being spent, and customers are given a much higher value proposition from the products that are being marketed to them.
Always Getting Better
Lean thinking in any realm of business hinges on constant improvement. Lean marketers are well positioned to do exactly this thanks to up to the minute analytic software. Now, the moment an ad campaign launches, marketers can monitor its every development, getting moment-by-moment updates any time a potential customer interacts with an advertisement.
Using this information, marketers can constantly calibrate their campaigns in response to the factors that bring them the most success. This might mean emphasizing one feature over another, or even redirecting advertisements to a channel that they hadn’t thought of before.
Better Customer Service
Customer service and marketing aren’t exactly phrases that enter together into most people’s minds. And yet they do share an intricate connection. Often, advertising campaigns will be someone’s first introduction to a brand. The marketing sets the tone for their entire brand experience. It says “this product is right for you.” And ideally, this should be true.
Except with the scattershot approach, it often isn’t. Shout from the rooftops “buy this!” and your words will inevitably fall onto many of the wrong ears. Lean marketing takes a different approach. The idea of any lean effort is to provide the most value both to the employees and the customer. This means only pushing marketing campaigns that will connect people with products they actually might benefit from.
Fortunately, with modern technology, this is easier than ever. Internal data coupled with analytic software allows you to understand two key points:
- Who gets the most value from your product: Customer satisfaction reports describe who is enjoying your product the most. How they use it successfully, what features they enjoy, etc.
- How to market to them: Knowing who is getting the most bang for their buck, lean thinking marketers can then channel their resources towards ends that are most likely to connect the product with the people who will use it the most. This could mean investing most heavily in social media channels that your customers are most likely to frequent. It could even mean targeting ads to happen during times most suited to your demographic’s schedule.
We live in an era of information. Modern marketers now know more about their consumer base than any previous generation has before. This makes them uniquely qualified to offer true, honest value.
Lean Isn’t Less
Subtract the waste and what do you get? More wins, more revenue, more customers. Lean marketing is a sustainable business strategy because at heart it is very simple. Do important work well. Everything else can be forgotten or put to the side.
It’s a strategy that’s good for your customers, good for your staff, and good for your business.